Shine With All the Untold
by Silberias
Summary: There are two sides to every story, and different eyes will see more or less depending on circumstance. This is Molly's side, and these are her eyes seeing it. Sequel, companion, and opposite piece to "My Medea."
1. Chapter 1

Inspired by the song **"Shine"** by Vienna Teng. It gave me Molly-feels, in **Mrs. Dizzy's** words, and so here it is. This is the sequel/opposite piece to **"My Medea,"** and is told entirely from Molly's point of view here. There are things she's aware of that Sherlock is doing, and there are things she is in the dark about because of reasons. It also jumps around a little bit on the timeline for her, going from their past together and some of the events of My Medea while also taking a closer look at the aftermath of Sherlock's faked death for his family. I hope you give the song a listen to a few times as you read this fic, too :)

There will be 21 chapters to this fic, and it IS completed at the moment. I'm just editing some of the chapters before I put them up here. And I'm thinking of doing the gimmicky thing of calling the sections 'patients' but am torn. I did the gimmicky thing with My Medea and am unsure if I ought to do the same here.

Well, without further ado, let me unveil the sequel to My Medea, **Shine With All The Untold.**

Enjoy!

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**In this desert land I know some rain must fall**

Mavis Leonette cried herself to sleep in Molly's arms as she sat on their bed that night. It was still a shock, remembering Mycroft's men take Sherlock away—to a funeral parlor, the paperwork said—on the gurney. He'd been so still, so still that he'd almost convinced Molly and she had been the one to _help_ him do this. And then the sudden shock that he'd not actually said goodbye to her, and that there was no guarantee that he would ever come back, had been enough to force her into the tears expected of a woman widowed in an instant. She had cried into Mrs. Hudson's shoulder for several minutes, away from the children, before taking them up to 221B to try to explain that Papa was gone.

Visitors had come and gone, trying to comfort her—and all Molly could think was that Sherlock would _just hate it_ that people were touching his things without his permission, let alone _moving_ them. She may or may not have shrieked at a few of those coming to show her a bit of sympathy, and she'd had a fresh appreciation for Sherlock's incredible tolerance of those who bothered him. He was always in a fragile place in his mind, a place that needed routine and normalcy from those around him. He would have been shouting and deducing people to tears by the end of the night, had he been there. But he couldn't be there, Molly thought as she tried not to cry again. He was gone so that they could live.

Because he loved them—though that is not what he had said to her. Molly knew that Sherlock would never forsake his own life for something as silly as pride. They would have dealt with it as his name was dragged through the mud, but that wasn't all that would happen if he didn't kill himself—the people who were after them were threatening to kill Molly, and Mavis Leonette, and Brinley. Pride was not the reason he had chosen to fake his own death. Her husband groused and complained when his pride was hurt, questioned, or damaged. He would never kill himself to save face—but he would sacrifice himself for the things he loved. The game, the chase, the hunt, and somewhere in there his family too. He could pretend all he wanted that he didn't really love them, just cared for them and their wellbeing in a scientific, biologic sense, but Molly knew he would never pretend to kill himself for something he merely _cared_ for.

She had taken refuge in their bedroom, leaving John to sort out the well-wishers and turn away the gawky ones.

Their bed was the same one Sherlock had had since she'd moved in with him. A bit bigger than a twin, but not quite a full—it was long, but small. Sherlock rarely slept the full night in it, but when he did he wanted to stretch out and he was _quite _tall. Tonight Brinley was curled up in a ball where Sherlock normally put his head. The infant was wailing and sobbing and couldn't be comforted. Mavis Leonette had attached herself to Molly's front, crying as well but also alternately pleading as best she could for Mummy to bring Papa back, for Papa to come play songs, and _where was Papa?_

Molly had no answer, and knew she wouldn't have one until either Sherlock returned or Mycroft called her with sad news. As her heart broke for her children, Molly wondered if she herself would ever recover from Sherlock's absence. Though he was rarely very demonstrative, she ached to spend the night as she usually did with him. She would be laying back on the bed, reading or writing—a book about her adventures with Sherlock, something she and John were collaborating on—and he would come in after putting Mavis Leonette to bed. Brinley's laugh would signal his entrance, and Sherlock would pause with a brief smirk at the boy's crib—pick him up, lay a kiss in his head, hold him until he dozed, put him back down—and then turn to the bed and curl up next to her until she slept.

Or he would stand and play the violin, songs he personally arranged for them or composed on the fly, wandering around the flat in the dead of night with the melodies trailing after him.

The silence around her in the flat now was deafening despite how loud Brinley and Mavis Leonette were being with their grief. They weren't old enough, really, to truly _miss_ the force that was their father. Molly, however, was more than able.

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	2. Chapter 2

Thank you **Musicchica10** for the review as well as the alert, and **Hush08** and **Jane009** for the favorites & alerts! They are all very much appreciated and loved :)

Well, without further ado,

Enjoy!

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**See where we began?**

The man introduced himself as _Sherlock Holmes, I'm here for a case with The Yard. I need a body of a twenty three year old female of above-average weight and below-average height. I can make do with between twenty one and twenty six, but no older or younger. Do you have anything?_

He had swept into her office quite unannounced as she was preparing for her shift, reviewing notes and doing some paperwork. Molly had been hired on about six weeks before, and while comfortable with her job she was still a little overwhelmed at times that she had truly done it. She had made her way through so much school, through so many crap shifts, through so many exams and _she had finally done it_. It didn't feel real, and the treatment she got from many people looking for the Chief Pathologist at the St. Bart's mortuary was distinctly subpar. Usually people thought that they were looking for a man, and if they even thought they were looking for a woman they certainly didn't have Molly in mind when they did.

But this man obviously knew she was the Chief Pathologist, and had come to her directly with his demand. Initially she'd gaped at his audacity—he was asking her as though she'd owed it to him, of all things!—as well as the fact that he was the first person to immediately treat her as something approaching her job qualifications. Sherlock Holmes walked into her life and treated her as though she were competent, as though she'd been thoroughly trained for what she was doing, and as though he knew and understood the sorts of limitations she might face in helping him. There had been no room at that first meeting, or any after, for her to feel anything else—the occasional anger at him, the growing crush that she was nurturing for him, none of it. Their first meeting had been entirely professional.

The crush hadn't been immediate, and it certainly wasn't based on any debonair looks the detective might have thought he had. Sherlock Holmes looked like an alien, a man with a weird outlook on life with a weirder face. His nose was what bothered her the most early on, she recalled in later years.

"I…I haven't finished reviewing the paperwork, but if you would wait for a few minutes I can skim to see if anyone has come in. And then I will take you down to the mortuary, after you fill out the forms of course. Y-you could actually do those while you wait for me, it would make this faster for you." That had given him pause, as though no one had ever asked him to fill out paperwork, let alone thought about his necessity for haste.

"It is of the utmost importance that I examine the amount of stress in the ankles…" he'd trailed off as she handed him the clipboard and a pen, his eyebrow raised in confusion for a moment before he gripped the board and took hold of the pen. She hadn't yet known him, not really, and wasn't intimidated by him. That had, of course, changed in less than an hour but in their first few minutes of meeting Molly had been fully in control of herself, sure of her place in the world.

And, early on, Molly Hooper had been quite annoyed by Sherlock Holmes. It wasn't like she disliked him, it was just that he was sometimes grating with his assumptions and he was sharper than he needed to be with those around him. Part of her job was that of telling family members how their relative died, or what to expect when viewing the body for identification, and so her habit was to be gentle with others. Not so with Sherlock, which she tried to understand—Molly identified with not being able to understand the nuances of the living, it was why she was a pathologist. Dead people had a fixed set of subtleties which she could catalogue individually without them bothering her.

Sherlock Holmes, however, took first place in not understanding the fragility of people and their emotions.

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	3. Chapter 3

Thank you **Musicchica10**, **Nocturnias**, and **Araminta18** for the reviews! Also thanks to **Nocturnias, HookedOnaFeeling09, th3bookthief, **and** Araminta18 ** for the favorites & alerts! They are all very much appreciated and loved :)

This chapter is because Molly's not dumb.

Well, without further ado,

Enjoy!

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**We've come so far**

At first he was strictly professional with her, and was in fact one of the few people who did so out of many. Her own subordinates barely paid her the proper respect, giving her little more than lip-service compared to what Sherlock Holmes gave her. But that was the thing: Sherlock Holmes didn't give her anything.

He treated her like she was the Chief Pathologist at St. Bart's. He was one of the few who did not take for granted the fact that she was smart and well-trained for the position she'd earned. She was an expert in a field which he was not, and so he always quizzed her thoroughly about this or that feature of a human body after death—and he never forgot a word she said. He in fact seemed to have committed every word to memory, and would wave away her commentary on particular bodies, only to regurgitate similar information nearly verbatim from a previous visit. Sherlock Holmes eventually was almost a half-trained pathologist from simply _listening_ to her, to little Molly Hooper.

It was only as the years wore on that she started to develop a little bit of a crush on him and his funny nose. At first he had been an oddity, called in only sometimes by Detective Inspector Lestrade and visiting her lab and mortuary mostly on his own research jaunts. It was all very up and up in the paperwork—he was registered as a double-full-time-independent-student, and therefore granted access far and beyond that given to many of the hospital's other independent students. Molly never questioned how one was allowed to register as such, but he was certainly around the place enough that she believed the double-full-time part of it. Independent-student she was less sure of, since he never seemed to have any true direction in his experiments and inquiries.

Watching him work was a treat, she began to notice. Her cold reception by colleagues had left her largely alone in the workplace, and while Sherlock Holmes was cold as well he wasn't overly cold to _her_. He was cold to _everyone_. Her crush was mostly borne out of a tiny light of interest coming from him. She certainly didn't count in his world more than anyone else, Molly wasn't stupid, but the fact that he didn't seek out help from her subordinates warmed her heart more than anything. He made her feel brave, in a weird way, even as she stuttered and stammered around him sometimes.

But because she had such a hard time being well-buttoned-up Molly Hooper around him, starting a relationship made up of more than simply allowing him to look at and occasionally abuse bodies was hard on her. She was terrified of driving him off somehow, of making him leave and leaving her even more alone and cold. Molly spent an entire weekend planning out how she would go about it. She chose the most innocuous thing that she knew he liked, coffee, and chose the most innocuous way to ask him.

Asking him to go to coffee _with her_ would send him into high-alert, and he would deduce her motives to the point where she would be left in tears and then he would never be the same around her again. He had verbally abused—_deduced_—most of her lab techs to the point of near-breakdown at one point or another, and nearly all of them ran at the sight of him. It was something which secretly pleased her, since it seemed there was no way to make them scared of _her_. At least she could threaten to schedule them for duty with Sherlock Holmes. And because of all this Molly knew full well that she had little interest in receiving such treatment herself. He would likely go after her thin lips and her small breasts, and the fact that her clothes were chosen because they were cute rather than posh—she made enough money to afford such things, but she liked polkadots and ruffles more than fashionable skirts and blouses.

So Molly asked if he _wanted _a coffee. There were three options to answer that one, and Molly tried to be comfortable with all three. The worst-case scenario was that he would see her motives despite her efforts and call her out on them while also refusing. The middle-ground was that he would send her off to get some coffee, but at least things would be different between them a little. And then the wonderful answer would be that they would take twenty minutes and get a coffee somewhere together. He would deduce the barista and the other customers, and Molly would smile and sip at her drink while he told her about the world around them.

Molly had gotten the middle-ground, and she'd been shocked she'd gotten that much. The look he'd given her after noticing her lipstick was enough to freeze her blood, and she'd been ready for him to call her out on her crush on him and smash her fragile hopes to pieces. Well, not _ready _but _waiting_. The other shoe hadn't dropped, and he'd allowed her to bring him coffee—black, two sugars, a recipe she committed to memory. Never once, in the last four years, had _she_ ever asked _him_ anything. She just hoped that it was enough to put her on his map somehow.

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	4. Chapter 4

Thank you **Musicchica10**, **rory'sfan04**, and **Araminta18** for the reviews!

Again, this story is being told from two timelines. One of them is events after Molly met Sherlock, and one of them is Molly's life after Sherlock's 'death.' This chapter belongs to the latter.

Well, without further ado,

Enjoy!

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**On this harbor shore, we hear the ocean call**

Molly put away his violin the morning after Sherlock 'died.' It was physically painful to look at it, and the wood burned in her hands as she put the thing in the top drawer of their dresser. She'd spent the morning folding his clothing, lovingly tracing the shirts that had been his favorites to wear and the ones which were her favorites to see on him. They were in that drawer too. His shoulders had filled them out beautifully, and were well-tailored to his narrow waist. The shirts had formed a bed for his beloved violin. The string on the bow was oddly loose, but Molly had seen him loosen it himself the day before—it was on purpose, so she would leave it as she found it.

She'd locked the drawer, hanging the key on a chain looped around her neck. In a few weeks, after his funeral, she would put his ring on the chain as well. It was a simple gold band with no identifying markings on it to speak of other than being vaguely square on the outside of it—so that it fit better on his finger, laying straight and normal as he wanted it. It didn't match Molly's ring at all, not really. Hers was simple on the outside, but the inside was faintly textured completely—it was etched with lines of music notes, the notes of the piece he always played for her. _Scheherazade_, an exotic and heart-breaking piece that she'd found him playing the night he came by her flat and let her kiss him.

Mrs. Hudson made them breakfast, taking it on herself to watch over Mavis Leonette as the girl despondently picked at her plate. Molly's daughter asked her repeatedly when Papa was coming home—he was just pretending, he _had _to be. Molly had burst into tears at the question, holding Brinley to her chest as he fussed and looked around for Sherlock to cuddle him close. The baby in her arms tried to push away from her, his jet-engine scream starting to whirr up as she sobbed. Mrs. Hudson had clucked and put away their breakfast for them, trying to occupy Mavis Leonette for Molly because she had her hands full with Brinley.

The absence of her husband was visceral that first week. His scent was fading from the flat, even the places where it was most likely to linger such as his chair and his pillow. Mavis Leonette held out the fierce belief that Papa was just pretending, and did until the eighth day when they laid him to rest. It was an open casket funeral, and the body inside was made up disturbingly well—Molly half-wondered if Sherlock's plan had failed and that he really _was _dead, that Mycroft's people had been unable to revive him. But no, she tried to reassure herself as she choked out his eulogy, Mycroft had promised to tell her the truth if Sherlock died. Although since Mycroft had been quite willing to subvert Sherlock's wishes that they conduct his fake funeral as though he'd been cremated, she tried not to doubt her brother-in-law too much. Mycroft had said it would be more convincing to anyone watching the family if they all saw his dead body rather than asking everyone to believe that the ashes in the pot were actually the ashes of Sherlock Holmes. Seeing the white face of the dead man had sent Mavis Leonette into a silent shock which twisted a knife into Molly's heart. Mavis Leonette's Papa never was never that still, _never_. He was always up and about, _doing things_. The girl was of the well-informed opinion that her Papa didn't sleep _at all_.

"My husband would be furious with us if he had a say in this but…I couldn't…I couldn't do it. Sherlock feels—_felt_," the correction stung her and she pressed one of his pocket kerchiefs to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut until she could open them without sobbing, "that cemeteries were a waste of space. He wanted to be cremated, but…if he wanted a say he shouldn't have—shouldn't have—" John had stood up and briefly murmured in her ear to keep it together, not to wander from what she'd managed to write to memorialize her 'dead' husband. She laughed a little and reined herself in again.

"John Watson, always the voice of _good_ and _not good_ for the Holmes family. Sherlock wasn't very good at things like this, and neither am I—he'd probably say that I don't have the talent to do public speaking, and you would all think he was cold for it. But he was warm and loving in his way to me, to us, despite his ups and downs. My husband didn't often share his innermost thoughts with anyone, and even though this fact has been so tragically reinforced, I know that he loved those around him deeply. The papers have been saying that this is so _illogical_ an end to his life, but," she glanced at the fake Sherlock lying dead in the coffin, "I believe in Sherlock Holmes. He never did anything without a reason, he spent his life trying to create order out of chaos and it thrilled him. So…although it hurts right now and I know that I will never be whole again without him, my husband loved us—me, his daughter, his son, his friends, his family—too much to hurt us so badly without a good cause."

She took a shallow breath, looking out at the people who had come to see Sherlock's funeral

"We won't ever know why Sherlock took his own life, he left no note—at least one he bothered to write down, perhaps he dictated it to me from the couch while I was out for the shopping, he did that on occasion—and he told no one, not even me, that he was going up to the roof, that he was in a place so dark that he saw no way out other than the one he chose…but…I will always love him. He was the greatest man I have ever met, and I will never forget him or stop missing him or believing in his work." Molly took a deep, shuddering breath before plunging on into the last bit of her speech.

"Sherlock did not believe in a heaven of any sort, so as I invite others to speak about him please do not refer to an afterlife—Sherlock Holmes is," she couldn't say it—she couldn't, there was no way—but she somehow managed, "_dead_, and while he is in no state to appreciate my efforts, it is an insult to speak of him as though any of us will see him again. He wouldn't want you to, so…please…please," and once again John Watson had to stand up, this time to lead her back to her seat so she could have her cry. Mrs. Hudson sat next to her, holding Brinley who was quietly fussing as he had been since Sherlock's disappearance from his life. Mavis Leonette crawled into Molly's lap and sniffled softly as she burrowed her face into her neck.

Someday they _would_ all see Sherlock again, but today was not the day. Molly could wait—Sherlock needed her to wait, and so she would.

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	5. Chapter 5

Thank you **Musicchica10**, **rory'sfan04**, and **Araminta18** for the reviews!

This story has been treating me so well so far, letting itself be edited and such. It's nice.

Well, without further ado,

Enjoy!

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**In our minds at war, we have so far to go**

Sherlock had seen right through her ploy at changing their relationship dynamic, because after the coffee incident he rarely came to the mortuary anymore while she was there. Her lab techs complained constantly, but Molly could hardly sympathize—they'd left her to deal with the detective for the last several years, they could deal with it that she'd driven him away with a crush. She hadn't seen him in two months when he suddenly appeared next to her in the canteen, telling her how he liked her hair.

Even as she felt flattered by it, she knew that a genuine compliment was not his only motive—though it _was_ a genuine compliment. Sherlock never let empty compliments leave his mouth, he believed in truth of the highest fashion. This did not mean he was above also attaching shady methods and reasons to that truth, and Molly had grown accustomed to Sherlock complimenting her in the worst ways and yet _still meaning it_. The DI he'd brought with him, a lout named Dimmock, had been awful as he looked at her as though she were some minion to be ordered about. She could hardly help that Sherlock never touched bodies he didn't have the paperwork for—so of course he would ask her to show him the feet of the deceased, letting her do the work since he didn't have the clearance for it.

Sherlock Holmes rarely did anything which could get anyone fired, usually saving that for his dealings with Lestrade and Lestrade was a good enough detective on his own that he would never be fired for calling in Sherlock. Molly, however, was not indispensable and fortunately Sherlock knew that somewhere in that great, messy brain of his. She knew, watching him explain his theory to Dimmock, that he hardly remembered why he was even avoiding her. It was time to try and force herself to move on.

So she got a little cat, and asked another man if he wanted coffee. Jim had been wonderful, an absolute dream, even after Sherlock had called him gay. Molly brushed off Sherlock's assessment—it would turn out to be true, she was sure, but she wasn't going to break up with a man because another man called him _gay_ of all things—and went on another two dates with Jim. She broke it off with him because he was _clingy_. Molly knew that she herself was a bit standoffish, and so it was hard when someone always turned to her for affection—she wasn't ready to give out love and kisses all the time, and Jim just hadn't understood that. He took and took and took, and she ended things before they got very serious.

And then it had gone all pear shaped two weeks afterwards and Molly was never gladder to have broken up with a man. What horrible things might Jim have made her do if she had still been attached to him? It was much better to emotionally crumple inside as the implications of Jim's entire relationship were made clear to her. He had been using her to get close to Sherlock, or just to annoy the man, to poke his buttons. Molly hadn't mattered in the slightest.

Sherlock had dropped by the lab one night a few days afterwards, a take-away curry in one hand. She didn't really like curry, but he had made the effort—he often shut people up by feeding them, it was easier to get all of his thoughts out uninterrupted if they were eating. Molly had watched him do it for years to Stamford and Lestrade, and even on occasion herself, so this was normal behavior for him. It had put her at ease, to see him acting normally once again.

What had come out of his mouth was what was _not _normal—that he was sorry, so very, very _sorry_ that he'd put her in danger. That he always missed _something_ and that this time that _something _could have cost her her life—that he wasn't sure what he would do with himself if she weren't at St. Bart's. Sherlock Holmes, for the first time ever it seemed, _apologized_ and he did it to Molly Hooper. She wanted to jump at him and kiss him senseless—something that had never occurred to her before, but felt incredibly _right_—but had restrained herself to smiling brightly and accepting the apology for what it was. Self-censure, self-recrimination, all of it. She'd even managed to finish the curry with a bit of a flourish, seeing the detective subtly relax as she didn't question any of his motives of such an apology.

After that night he came 'round the lab more often, once again becoming a one-or-twice-a-week fixture in her life and it made Molly glow with happiness. Sometimes he brought food with him, often when he wanted peace and quiet. Sometimes he nearly just _chatted_ with her, quizzing her on things she'd told him long ago but he liked to revisit occasionally. The awful mess with Jim had cleared some air between herself and Sherlock and she was immensely glad of it.

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	6. Chapter 6

Thank you **Musicchica10**, and **Araminta18** for the reviews!

Sorry for any confusion between Sherlock the Cat and Sherlock the Man here, I tried to make it easier on the readability side of things but...yeah. Again, this story is the parallel, companion, and/or sequel to My Medea so remember to factor in what Sherlock himself thinks of some of the happenings here :)

Well, without further ado,

Enjoy!

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**Shine with all the untold**

Her cat was feeling snuggly tonight. Sherlock the Cat had his days where he was skittish around her, begging to get out—he rarely clawed the furniture except for when he desperately wanted _out_. But tonight the little tabby was curled tightly on her lap and purring up a storm. She petted him absently as she thought about his namesake Sherlock Holmes. Her friends thought her cat was called Toby, but Molly knew the cat far better and felt that Sherlock was a far better name. The little animal reminded her fiercely of the frightfully thin detective, but with perhaps a little less thoughtlessness in regards to how he treated Molly.

Sherlock the Cat at least _liked_ her for everything she did to please him.

The last couple of weeks were wonderful, yes, having the man Sherlock around and talking to her occasionally even, but it was starting to hurt again like it had before the business with Jim. He was close, but he seemed to have decided that she'd grown through her crush on him apparently—why else would he return so comfortably to the lab, as though nothing had happened?

Right as she was starting to feel truly sorry for herself for the night, Molly heard a high note from a violin sing out in the hallway outside of her flat. It held for a long moment before winding down a few notes, falling like water. She very gently pulled Sherlock off of his perch on her lap—he whined a little but went about his business once she set him down on the couch next to her. Molly went to her bedroom and reached for a house coat to pull over her make-shift pyjamas. The violin music continued throughout all this, heartbreaking and sweet—it sounded hopeful and resigned all at once. Molly padded to her door and peered up through the peephole—the person was too close to one of the jambs to be seen very well but Molly had a sudden suspicion that she knew exactly who it was. She opened the door with her heart in her throat, fearful of just why he was there.

"Sherlock…what are you doing here?" it was mystifying, thrilling and terrifying all in one and _oh god, the neighbors_, "It's past ten." His green eyes, so pale they bordered on gray, bored into her as he finished the last line of whatever beautiful, heartbreaking song he'd been playing. And then he'd drawn himself up to his full height and stood squarely in front of her. Molly wasn't one for superstitions or premonitions, but she felt like in another life she was to say nearly those exact words to him and it made her shiver a bit. What he said, however, had her almost in tears in an instant.

"Molly, don't you think I've kept you waiting long enough?"

The first thought in her mind was that he'd lost the plot, he'd gone 'round the bend and there was no bringing him back. The next was to take in his entire body language—he'd never been more serious in his life, and she'd seen him being quite severe sometimes. He was wound tight around himself, staring down into her face, his eyes barely flicking over her features as they usually did. So Molly very hesitantly, slowly and deliberately, reached up to cup his cheek with one hand while the other gently threaded through his hair. She marveled at what she was able to see about Sherlock Holmes from this very moment.

He'd known, he'd always known, of her crush—he'd been just as afraid of messing everything up as she had been, she could tell right now as she urged his head down so that their lips met. She had to stand on her tiptoes, but at least he was willing to bend down a little to help out. His hands were full of his violin, so she didn't mind when his arms didn't raise to bring her close. She didn't do anything other than slant her mouth against his, pushing her lips into his own until he responded in kind. Molly was half-afraid that he would break and run as she let herself back down from her toes, but instead he bent his upper body and his neck so that their mouths were still close. His sigh made the flyaways framing her face fan out a little, fluttering in the warm air of his breathing.

She tried to look up into his eyes, but he rested his forehead against her own and it was a little painful to make her eyes focus at that distance. He rubbed his nose gently against hers, nuzzling just almost for a moment or three before he lifted his face away and kissed her forehead. His hair was incredibly soft between her fingers, and she threaded her other hand into his dark hair as well. His breath feathered over her cheek as he just brushed his lips down her temple, across and down her cheek, and finally going for a kiss which had Molly clenching her hands in his hair and curling her toes against the cold floor.

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	7. Chapter 7

Thank you **Musicchica10**, and **Araminta18** for the reviews!

It takes a special kind of person to love Sherlock Holmes.

Enjoy!

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**Hold the light given unto you **

The first night she stayed over at Baker Street was something she knew she only appreciated because she knew _Sherlock_. She'd come over with a terrible science fiction movie, something about drilling to the center of the earth and setting off a bomb, for Sherlock to pick apart and for her to laugh at as he did so. She also, as she took a cab over, hoped that perhaps things might turn a little warmer for the evening between them—Sherlock had said that his flatmate was out for the evening with a girlfriend. Sherlock wouldn't have mentioned it unless he wanted her to draw some assumptions from it, she knew that much.

Unfortunately within twenty minutes of putting the movie in, Sherlock had gotten a call from that DI named Dimmock—a lead had gone cold when Dimmock needed it hot, and could Sherlock _please_ help. Molly knew that Sherlock knew the difference between _good_ and _not good_ in a relationship right then as he hesitated—he probably thought she didn't see, not because she _couldn't_ but because she wasn't Sherlock Holmes—before he answered that yes, he was on his way. Dimmock probably never noticed a beat.

"I have to go, don't wait up."

"Should I bother staying if I ought not wait up?" She felt safer taking earlier cabs home rather than later ones, even though the thought of going home so soon made her more than a little disappointed and sad. One of Sherlock's cases several months, almost a year, ago still disturbed her. A serial-killer cabbie, preying on those traveling alone. Just because Sherlock would tear someone's head off if she were hurt didn't mean she wouldn't be dead—so she stuck to the earlier cabs for a greater illusion of safety. Sherlock knew her reasons well enough without even asking, but tonight her words made him pause again—this time deliberately. She was supposed to see him thinking here.

"Yes. I'd like for you to be here when I return. Tomorrow is your day off, and I planned on spending part of it with you. Sleep in my bed if you like, it is no inconvenience," he finally said with a faint smile as he crammed his gawky limbs into his coat and tied his scarf around his neck.

And with that he was off. In the middle of their night in, their date, their almost snog—one call and he was gone in a flash, just like that. Most women would have huffed in annoyance and left, or just given their man a piece of their mind the instant he tried to pull that kind of stunt. But Molly knew that Sherlock was not like most men, and that this was how he was. There would always be the work, and that would almost always come first. Molly stayed that night, curling up under the covers of Sherlock's barely-used bed, because she'd seen him hesitate. He had just _almost_ permitted himself to debate—_Case_, girlfriend, _case_, girlfriend.

There was no debate in his mind, of course, but the fact that he had _almost_ debated it, that was what kept her there. Because Sherlock Holmes was in love with her, he had to be—because although he was married to his work, he'd almost thought of choosing her over his facts and deductions and theories.

It was all she was going to get, she knew, for probably many months or even years. But it _had_ happened, she thought with a smile as she took off her trousers and got in bed wearing only her shirt and panties—it would be uncomfortable to sleep, otherwise, and Sherlock _had_ said it would be fine. Molly didn't even wake up when Sherlock slipped in beside her just before dawn, though she did dream of him holding her tightly for most of the night.

She woke up with a still fully-clothed Sherlock Holmes facing her, still asleep as he held her close—one arm under her side, hand splayed out across her ribcage while the other arm lay crooked in the small gap between them so that his other hand rested fully over her hip.

At the time she was so entranced by how his face looked when he was unconscious—because she didn't believe, at the time, that Sherlock _slept_ so much as ran out of all energy and collapsed—that she didn't think to be embarrassed that she was sleeping half-naked in his bed. His sheets were nicer than hers, sliding soft against her skin, and _he_ was a far nicer thing to wrap her arms around than a dowdy old pillow. She had worried that when he regained consciousness—because the only people who 'woke up' were people who went to bed in the first place—he would put some distance between them, but she needn't have. Sherlock's eyes opened before his breathing changed rhythm, though his expression only took form once he was breathing in and out and _awake_—and once he saw Molly's own eyes, he'd grinned before moving in for a kiss.

"You stayed—I saw that you would, but I miss things sometimes when I read you." Molly giggled between his kisses and his words, while also trying to push him up a bit—she wanted to brush her teeth, and his faint stubble was scratching her in a way she didn't quite like. She failed to get him off, of course, but she did succeed in getting him to let up with his attack on her face.

"Did you solve the case?"

"Was hardly needed," he sniffed, "John could have solved it while blind-drunk. Dimmock won't call again to_ confirm a hunch_ again, I think. It's why I work with Lestrade, you know, Molly—he only calls when he's stumped. Absolutely stumped."

She stroked his cheek, ticking her thumbnail against the coarse facial hair which was trying to make an appearance. It was bizarre, because she'd never seen him with it—he was normally completely and utterly clean-shaven in even the most extenuating of circumstances. Molly thought back later and saw that this is when she should have seen the signs.

He'd let her stay over, he'd _almost_ almost declined a case, and there he was that morning—in rumpled clothes with a scratchy face—holding her close to him while she slept in his bed. The signs were indeed _quite_ clear to Molly as she looked back on that morning. Sherlock was devoted to her, so it was a good thing she was devoted to him as well.

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	8. Chapter 8

Thank you **Musicchica10**, and **Araminta18** for the reviews, I really, really, really appreciate them!

It takes a special kind of person to love Sherlock Holmes. It was all well and good in My Medea for Sherlock to kill Adler, it fit him. But it occurred to me that it probably _isn't_ all well and good for Molly.

Enjoy!

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**Find the love to unfold in this broken world we choose**

He'd killed for her.

Sherlock Holmes had killed six people _for her_. It had all come out when he'd thrown that woman from the window—Sherlock's brother had come over to gravely inform the two of them that it seemed as though the woman had been intent on at least one of their deaths and that Sherlock's actions, while regrettable, were necessary for their safety. No charges would be pressed. Molly had sat on the couch as they talked in the kitchen, feeling quite alone and scared of this man she was living with, sleeping with, in love with. She knew that Sherlock was possessive, and that he brutally took down those who got in his way—not because he himself was brutal, it was just that he had no time for nuance most of the time and he often chose the fastest means to meet ends. Typically his brusque way of dealing with problems manifested at _worst_ as frighteningly painful deductions of personal lives, though occasionally he would wound with more than words.

She knew it was stupid, but she'd never imagined that he was capable of murder.

But how could she have ever imagined that his fanatic loyalty towards her would lead him to kill someone in cold blood? Let alone the five others that his older brother mentioned? Sherlock who was sweet to her and had helped her move in with him two months ago? Sherlock who played violin because it made her happy?

She had let this man have unprotected sex with her for God's sake, this man who had killed a woman because she _might_ have been a threat to Molly herself! She felt cold wash over her as Sherlock's brother said his goodbyes, but she didn't flinch away from Sherlock when he knelt in front of her once they were alone. His hands wrapped around the backs of her knees, a gesture which was filled with mixed meaning—he was holding her as though he _needed _her, while at the same time preventing her from escape. He had always been messed up in the head. John thought it to be Asperger's, whereas Molly had always believed Sherlock's story of being a high functioning sociopath.

If she'd ever had doubts, however, they fled at this revelation. It frightened her, a little, to look up into his green eyes knowing that he would _see_ her fear and that he _loathed_ fear out of all human emotions. It was the weakest and most irrational of all of them, in his opinion. He could almost smell it on other people, too, and right now he was just so close—

"Will you be okay?"

"I—"

"I didn't do it to impress you, Molly. I did it to save your life, to protect you and I will try to never do it again. _Will you be okay?_" She brought up one of her hands to touch his cheek, trailing a finger along a scratch there—left by the woman he'd thrown out of their window as she scrabbled against him—and thought about it. There were always dead bodies around Sherlock Holmes, either ones that he was investigating or ones put there by those around him as they tried to save him. He was just imitating what he saw and experienced, she knew—they cared for him, they killed for him should the need arise. He cared for her, so he killed for her. Not for reward or praise or something sick like that, but because he wanted her to be safe.

"Yes, I will be okay, Sherlock."

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	9. Chapter 9

Thank you **Musicchica10**, **Nocturnias**and **Araminta18** for the reviews, I really, really, really appreciate them!

Remember, divergence starts in earnest right around here at Baskerville.

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**In unending storms we search for space to breathe**

It was a simple trip to the chemist to get something to settle her stomach when Molly had had the most awful thought go through her head. _It was supposed to come this week_.

The week here in Grimpin had been bizarre and strange and she knew that Sherlock had been just inches from putting her on the train and calling his brother to make sure she was escorted back to their flat and watched until he got back himself. But it was all well and done now. Sherlock had solved the case, despite having no arrest at the end of it—he'd even had someone with the power of arrest with him, too, which was what really made him mad—and they'd had a wonderful evening in. Sherlock had been quite attentive to her as he'd laid her down and left her breathless.

This morning, while Sherlock had said goodbye to John Watson and _Greg_ Lestrade, Molly had decided to finally do something about her upset stomach which had been awful all week. The first few days she'd blamed it on the vegetarian food—she was used to a good diet with portions of chicken and beef when she wanted them—and then on the wariness all of them had had around Sherlock as he tried to figure out just how he'd seen something that didn't exist, and this morning it was just too much.

But then she'd gotten to thinking. And then she'd remembered, and it was with incredible apprehension that she walked back down the aisles towards a section she'd never visited in earnest worry. Just a simple pregnancy test—she could take it in the downstairs loo of the inn and Sherlock would never be the wiser to her silly hunch. She was going to be thirty three soon, and some women started to have a bit of irregularity with their cycle in their mid-thirties. It was all perfectly well until the little stick had cured properly.

The result was devastating. Positive, meaning that the risk they'd been flirting with the last few months had finally caught them out. Molly trusted the results well enough that she didn't go waste her money on a second test. Instead she wobbled upstairs to the room she was in with Sherlock and tried to finish packing up for them, and also tried to figure out how to tell Sherlock Holmes that he would be a father within a year. She tried to avoid speculating what he would do, too, because being a mother was something she'd always vaguely wanted—but Sherlock's thoughts were a complete unknown in the equation.

He was in the shower, and she knew he would come out smelling fresh and beautiful, his dark-dark brown hair nearly black from the wet, and his jaw would be freakishly smooth from the recent shave. Molly tried not to twist her hands, so instead she picked out a few shirts for him to maybe wear for the day—a creamy white, an eggshell blue, a paler hue of red that was nearly cerise, and a forest green which she knew would turn his almost-gray green eyes more towards leaf-green.

Her boyfriend—lover? Paramour? What silly word would Sherlock choose if he were to talk about her to another?—came out of the shower in only his pants and a towel. Molly felt herself blush while also feeling the nervous flush creep up her neck at the same time. His eyes zeroed in on her almost immediately, coming across the room as she opened her mouth to speak.

"Sherlock, we need to talk—please." She would consider doing whatever he wanted, within reason, he just had to hear her say it. Hear her say that she was pregnant. It explained so much—her fatigue, her upset stomach, her missed period—and it scared her. Sherlock wasn't the type to want children, she knew. He was on a stretch already with being in a relationship with her, it was difficult for him to be there for her weekly let alone daily and _they slept in the same bed_. Molly tried to make her peace with whatever might come out of his mouth—even preparing for him to say something mocking or cruel as he came to stand between her legs, whipping his damp towel around her shoulders. It was warm from him and from the hot, damp air it had been in minutes ago.

"Sherlock, I'm…I'm afraid," which was all she needed to say to have him at eye level almost instantly, a hand trailing at her cheek. Molly hoped that he loved her enough to let her go if he didn't want the baby she was now fairly sure she would be having—she wanted a baby, and she wasn't about to get rid of Sherlock's just because he didn't want a child. Sherlock Holmes didn't run her life. With that resolve steeling her a little, she opened her mouth and looked him right in the eye to tell him just what was wrong with her.

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	10. Chapter 10

Thank you **Musicchica10** for the review!

Enjoy!

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**How our hearts are worn**

When the results come back for the gender of their baby—a girl, healthy as could be it seemed from the ultrasound—Sherlock had started deciding on what to name her. Molly let him be, knowing that he would call the baby whatever he wanted anyway so it was easier to let him do the naming. She was just happy that as her belly grew and their lives changed to accommodate this tiny new person, that Sherlock was doing his best to understand and adjust. For a man constantly searching for something new to occupy his mind, he required that his physical space remain largely unchanged—the changes around the flat were constant points of contention. The idea that near the door downstairs was where they would keep a pram was almost untenable to him for several days, until Molly threatened to make him wear a front-loading baby-pack and have their daughter attached by ungainly straps to his chest constantly whenever they went out.

As time went on, he slept less and less it seemed like—but spent more and more time in their bed at night. Molly could hardly sleep after a few months, so she almost always fell to dozing with Sherlock's hand gently rubbing her abdomen and woke up the same way. She wondered who would feel the baby—_Mavis_, _first name will definitely be Mavis_ he'd declared a week after they'd gotten the news of gender—kick first, Molly or Sherlock. It was a long-shot, but Molly almost wanted to put her money on Sherlock since he was scientifically precise with his attentiveness.

She knew that being a parent for Sherlock Holmes would be half an exercise in patience and half a scientific experiment of an incredible scale. Molly didn't complain, because if she thought about it, she'd always known he would be this way if he were to ever father a child.

As the weeks came and went and her abdomen rounded further every day, she mustered the courage to ask him. Molly did wonder what Sherlock would think of her suggestion but tried not to worry about it too much, tried to tell herself that it would be fine. She wanted their child to be born in wedlock, an idea which Sherlock didn't exactly _despise_ in previous conversation but was _bewildered_ by.

But for Molly, the idea of being married before she gave birth made it feel as though she wasn't completely dancing on her father's grave with the romance between her and Sherlock. Her father had been a staunch Catholic, devout and pious—Sherlock would have put him off by the hour if not the _minute_ had the old man been alive. Sherlock, meanwhile, was a staunch atheist—her dad wouldn't have been able to sit in the same room as him after such a discovery. Molly herself didn't feel like she needed to spend the mental exercise 'choosing' between the two.

She actually didn't mind so much. She'd gone through more than a decade of school and training to work with the dead, after all, she didn't really care what people thought would happen to them after they died. It made them happy in life, hopefully, and after that she didn't mind. It had gotten them through the day for a number of years, and she wasn't about to judge someone who could hardly defend themselves.

Sherlock minded, though, because he had the _truth_ of the world in his opinion—and those who refused to accept truth and fact were lesser in his eyes. There were even people he refused to associate with because of their religious leanings.

In fact, Sherlock had minded so much that he'd done something rather shocking after agreeing with her, saying that he'd like it if they married. He'd called his scary older brother—_Mycroft Holmes_—to preside over their small, civil wedding. He'd done it just to make sure that the mention of 'iron age fairytales' was expertly excised from the literature Mycroft read from. Mycroft, who Molly had only met a few times over the last several years, was cut from the same cloth as Sherlock.

Molly had sighed as Sherlock enumerated his reasons in the cab home, leaning against him when he put his arm around her to bring her close. She wasn't willing to reason with him over something like this, not when she'd gotten what she wanted out of it and not when there wasn't really any point. Besides, he'd gotten her a such a lovely ring without even asking what she'd like—in her fantasies growing up, the man of her dreams would just _know_ what kind of ring she'd want. It brought a tired smile to her face—that must mean that Sherlock was the man of her dreams somehow. In which case, her dreams were made of some precariously weird stuff.

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	11. Chapter 11

Thank you **Musicchica10 **and** Araminta18 **for the reviews on Chapter 10. Oh, and, hey, **Mrs. Dizzy** for that amazing 10 review streak, that was brilliant to read on my half-hour break today. Just...just awesome. Thank you (and everyone else who reads this, even though I don't know who you are) for the love on this story :D

There are about 9 more chapters to this, too, so hang tight.

Enjoy!

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**We've come so far**

Mycroft visited her one afternoon a few weeks after Sherlock's 'death.' He gave a brief smile to Mavis Leonette's squealing address to him, and patted Brinley's cheek before he sat down across the table from Molly. She'd never quite gotten to know Sherlock's brother—the brothers didn't get on, and Sherlock didn't like the way Mycroft sometimes treated their friends and acquaintances. Molly liked him well enough, in a casual-distant-relatives sort of way, and she could tell that Mycroft only poked at the personal lives of those around Sherlock because he _cared_. It was sweet in a way.

She still had long crying jags once in a while, going down to Mrs. Hudson's kitchen after putting the kids down for a nap in 221B and just sobbing. Molly was glad Sherlock couldn't see her, because it would have upset him greatly—he hated crying, especially when there was no way he could see to easily make it stop.

"Molly…I know this has been hard for you. You've probably forgotten all about it by now with everything else you've had to deal with, but I have that disc you asked for last month after…"

He stopped, frowning deeply until whatever emotion he was experiencing passed. Mycroft Holmes rarely let his mind show on his face—Sherlock's guarded expressions were _cartoony_ compared to his brother Mycroft's, in Molly's opinion. Her brother-in-law was used to spying on his brother to reassure himself, but now Sherlock was gone where none of them could find him. And there was no telling when he would be home. Molly smiled encouragingly at Mycroft.

"He broke the rules that night, you know. Mavee-L…Mavis Leonette needs a firm structure in her life, she's very much like her father, so she normally gets one bed-time story. No matter what—but he read her three, all in a row…" she trailed off, glancing down at the table and once again mourning the long scratch down it that Sherlock had said a friend of his left there. Well, I say _friend_, he'd laughed as he'd told her about it a few years ago when she moved in.

"My brother was never one for rules, I cannot imagine he would limit himself to them the night before he…"

"Mummy, can Unca Mykie bring Papa home?" Mavis Leonette had been sitting playing with her little brother—a complicated game of peek-a-boo-roulette of some sort that Sherlock had invented—but now she was standing just next to Molly's elbow. She smiled sadly at her daughter and stroked her fingers through her hair. She was such a smart girl. Molly hoped she would take after Sherlock while at the same time dreading the same thought. However just now she was at a loss for words until Mycroft warmed suddenly to the nickname his niece had bestowed on him.

"Mavis Leonette, no one can bring your father home. He is gone, little one. But you have your mother, and you brother, many others, and me. We all love you just as much as your father did—and we always will. Now, I brought you a gift—but I will only give it to you if you do not ask the impossible of me again."

He obviously didn't speak to three year olds much, but Molly smiled faintly at his attempt. Even Sherlock was better on his worst days than _that_. Mavis Leonette had probably caught about half of what her uncle had said to her.

"Unca Mykie…"

"Your father is dead, Mavis Leonette, I cannot change it." Mycroft's brief stint of warmth was over, but it was nice to see he could act human occasionally—Sherlock was of the opinion that his brother was some form of alien and most of the time Molly couldn't help but agree a little bit. He stood up and handed her a packet, inside of which was the high quality disc which contained the bed time stories Sherlock had read to his children the night before she and Mycroft had helped him fake his death.

The disc was professionally done, with a cover-art made from their last Holmes family photo, and a tiny track-listing. Molly decided that she would play Peter Rabbit for the kids tonight, and spend some time remembering _Papa_ with Mavis Leonette—Brinley had begun to go about his life normally again, fussing less and less as he realized that there was no one to hold him and pace for the whole night, that he only had his Mum and no one else. Mavis Leonette was the one who remembered Sherlock, and viscerally missed him—some days she was convinced that he would walk in the door beside John Watson or Molly herself, or even that he was hiding out with Mrs. Hudson.

She was just doing as her father would have wanted her to—she had eliminated the impossible, which was that her father Sherlock Holmes was dead, and was now moving on to the implausible. Sherlock would have been proud.

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	12. Chapter 12

Thank you **Musicchica10, MorbidbyDefault, Mrs. Dizzy **and** Araminta18 **for the reviews on Chapter 11!

I'm glad all of you enjoyed that chapter, I really liked writing it. Now, I'm apologizing to you in advance for the next few chapters because they are about half the length of what I've been posting but you should all be used to that from reading My Medea. This chapter is because when people do things out of the norm, it's friggin' weird.

Enjoy!

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**In this desert land we blossom and we cease**

She was going to kill him. Molly Holmes, nee Hooper, was going to _kill_ her husband Sherlock. He had had the bright idea of taking time off from his cases to help look after her and their infant daughter, and somehow he hadn't thought that he might get _bored_. It wasn't that he was up to his usual behaviors when he was bored—normally Sherlock would fire guns or give visitors the frights of their lives with his experiments on the mice and rats that the cat would find and that Sherlock would pilfer from the feline. Normally Sherlock was loud and destructive, manic and frightening when he was bored.

Molly could _easily_ deal with that Sherlock Holmes. She'd known that man for nearly seven years, and she could handle him.

This one was entirely different. This one _cared_ and _did_ things like wake up moments before their infant daughter woke up screaming for her nappy to be changed, or dutifully fetched whatever Molly needed, or took extra 'turns' with caring for Mayvee-Lynn in the night.

It was impossible that he was really the man she'd married, the man who loved milk but couldn't remember to buy it. So Molly held Mayvee-Lynn up to her breast so the baby could nurse, and she rested her hip on the kitchen counter as she waited for "Sherlock."

Because after this, discovering not only milk but well-chosen fruits and veg in the fridge, she was most definitely going to kill the man coming down the hall—because someone had replaced Sherlock Holmes, resident arse of 221B Baker Street, with this poorly trained, overly solicitous and weirdly kind clone.

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	13. Chapter 13

Thank you **Musicchica10, **and** Araminta18 **for the reviews on Chapter 12!

Dunno if any of you noticed in chapter 10, but after Sherlock's death Molly tries to refer to Mayvee-Lynn as Mavis Leonette. Yes, that is on purpose. I'm also really happy with the edit here, there were a few paragraphs here which were quite wonky in the draft but are much better now.

Enjoy!

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**Tell your story now **

Molly double-checked the calendar she kept on the inside of the mirror in the loo, and she nodded to herself. There was no doubting it, she was most definitely pregnant again. No need to go out and buy a test, not when she'd missed her period twice and was feeling so awfully icky. Sherlock was preoccupied with a case, though, so she waited to tell him for another day or so—when he was once again himself, rather than so fully engaged with solving the crime, catching the bad-guy, the usual superhero stuff that he got up to.

She waited until the morning two days later. She nibbled on breakfast early in the morning while Sherlock was having his shower before he brought Mayvee-Lynn out to have her own breakfast. Once the toddler was settled in her high-chair, he turned to pour himself a cup of coffee, fixing it how he wanted before he sat down next to her and watched her feed their little girl. Mayvee-Lynn _loved_ carrots, couldn't get enough of them it seemed.

On her face.

Molly pursed her lips a little and got a damp towel to wipe the baby's face clean, and caught him staring at her as she finished. The look on his face was the one he gave her when he was thinking of doing wicked things to her. It made Molly blush before she laughed softly—it was because of glances like that that she was pregnant again. She decided that there was no time like the present, and to make a bit of a joke of the announcement—hopefully it didn't fall too flat or be too much of a misstep. Sherlock still occasionally told her of the times and places where perhaps it would have been better to remain silent. Though, in return, Molly was starting to point out _good_ and _not good_ situations to him—it was only fair.

The words came out blurted and rushed and awful but—but then Sherlock was standing up with a bit of a playful smirk across his face. Molly loved it when he looked at her like that, like she was a bundle of mysteries that he was about to unravel as a parlor trick. But today he didn't, he just pulled her up to stand with him, holding her close and molding his body against hers. For a long moment they just stood there, Mayvee-Lynn gurgling happily behind them as Sherlock held her so close that he was just a hair from actually picking her up.

And then he let her go just a little to kiss her nose and rest his forehead against hers. All Molly could see were his green eyes, so light that they were almost gray, but she didn't blink away. Instead she snaked her hands up to curl her fingers into his hair and bit her lip as he inspected her face and leaned in to press his lips against hers softly. Sometimes life with Sherlock was like a dream she'd had once, and Molly tried not to wonder when it would end—because it wouldn't, it _couldn't_, she would just _die_ if Sherlock ever left her after everything he'd done to her. Sherlock had decided that he wanted Molly, and he'd gotten her. He wanted a family, and he'd gotten a family. Molly hoped that he loved them enough to never leave them.

It was surreal that this man loved her, despite it being _true. _

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	14. Chapter 14

Thank you **Musicchica10, Mrs. Dizzy, **and** Araminta18 **for your wonderful reviews!

So yeah.

Enjoy!

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**We have so much to know**

Sherlock was delighted to have a second pregnancy to study. He'd never been allowed before—Molly didn't wonder why, she _did_ know him—and he was riding high on the fact that he could compare and contrast between their unborn child's gestation and that of his records of their nearing-two year old daughter's. The only person close to Sherlock to have had a child in the last five years was his own older brother, but Mycroft Holmes kept the location and general knowledge of his family to a level-5 privilege and even Sherlock was a little funny on where his nephew and sister-in-law were these days.

He tore through the newest literature on human pregnancy, and he even took over the cooking in the household to be sure that all the recipes he found were prepared in exactitude. Molly didn't mind so much, she was getting used to this weirdly attentive Sherlock as much as she was again getting used to not sleeping through the night and having to relieve herself constantly. His attentive behavior was borne more of his exceptional need to control every little bit of his life rather than a psychotic break of any sort as she'd thought it was in the weeks and months after Mayvee-Lynn was born.

Molly focused on taking care of herself and her family and gladly left many things in Sherlock's hands. Her daughter was deeply unsure of the addition of another baby to the family. She could see it in Mayvee-Lynn's eyes whenever the girl put uncertain hands on Molly's belly—_won't you and Papa love me anymore after you have another one of me? How can you possibly have enough love for me and someone else?_

There was a slightly haunted but hopeful look in the toddler's eyes whenever Sherlock explained that Mummy was helping make a baby brother for her. It reminded Molly of Sherlock's own expressions whenever she worked on research with her colleagues. Mayvee-Lynn worried that her Mummy and Papa wouldn't have enough love left over at the end of the day if they had to look after a little baby too. Sherlock gave her that look because he was worried that she wouldn't have enough energy to do science with him at the end of the day, and it was hilarious and amazing to be able to make such a comparison. Mayvee-Lynn proved that the apple never fell far from the tree.

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	15. Chapter 15

Thank you **Musicchica10, **and** Araminta18 **for your wonderful reviews!

Enjoy!

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**Shine with all the untold**

When she was cleaned up and rested enough for visitors after giving birth, it was just Sherlock along with John and Mary Watson. Mayvee-Lynn fidgeted in John's arms, wanting to be held by Sherlock or Molly. But Molly's arms were occupied with the new baby, and Sherlock had arrived with his violin—there would be no welcome for the little girl to climb up on his lap at the moment. Despite starting to be vaguely tamed by fatherhood and marriage and age, Sherlock could still be quite prickly, even to those he loved. Well, he rarely said that he loved them, but Molly still _knew_. He didn't _need_ to say it, not with her. He lived his life lamenting about people just not _thinking_ or _looking_, and so Molly did her best to do both. So she knew, from thinking about what she saw, that Sherlock adored his small family.

"Pwetty—pwetty baby, pwetty Mummy," Mayvee-Lynn chattered as Sherlock gently tuned his violin, but soon her words stopped when Sherlock fixed his green eyes on her little brown ones.

"Mavis Leonette, while your mother is quite pleasing to look at, if you are to insist on your brother being pretty you must say so correctly. Your brother is _pretty_. P," he enunciated the first letter carefully and waited for the toddler to repeat him, continuing once she did. "R, P-r, pret, tee, pretty." She had been having a little trouble with her R's so far, and Sherlock was hell-bent on breaking her of the habit of softening them or replacing them with other sounds. Molly was secretly relieved that out of the two of them, it was Sherlock taking on that duty. Mavis Leonette hated being told she was wrong or being punished, and ran to her father often when Molly meted out justice—when Sherlock did it, however, there was no recourse for the little girl. She knew that whatever Mummy would come up with would be worse.

She turned her attention to the infant in her arms once again, having been distracted for a moment when her guests had arrived. He had a little mop of reddish brown hair which fuzzed out from his head, almost just like her own and his sister's. Sherlock's genes weren't quite strong enough to beat hers out, it seemed—it didn't surprise Molly. She'd seen the few family photos the Holmes family kept. Sherlock had the darkest hair out of all of them and stuck out like a smashed thumb. It was no surprise that their two kids would turn out looking like her.

Sherlock had finally gotten his violin tuned to his satisfaction and was trilling out a few half-formed melodies on it. He had told her he wanted Mayvee-Lynn to begin learning the instrument, but Molly was hesitant. She wasn't sure she wanted to in effect double the amount of violin-related shenanigans around the flat, because while Sherlock occasionally acted like a three year old, Mayvee-Lynn _was_ a three year old. Or almost, in a few months at least. The thoughts of violins and melodies got Molly's attention, though, and she bit her lip before getting _Sherlock's_ attention.

"Sherlock, I like what you're playing but…could you play something about birds? Or spring?"

She fell asleep to his music, holding the little boy upon whom he'd inflicted the most caring, yet awful, name he could. Molly knew it wasn't on purpose. Weird names were compulsive for people from a certain background—his mother and father had named their children _Mycroft_ and _Sherlock_, which meant that Molly's kids were quite frankly lucky to escape with "Mavis Leonette," and "Brinley." There were worse names out there, and she was sure that Sherlock knew of them—and liked some of them—too.

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	16. Chapter 16

Thank you **Musicchica10, **and** Mrs Dizzy **for your wonderful reviews!

And hey, yes, I like the name "Brinley" too :D Although I can't add it to my "things I would name a kid," because I don't like to put names I've given fictional characters on that list... Shoulda thought that through.

Enjoy!

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**Hold the light given unto you**

It was hard to corral her family for portraits. Even harder now that they had Brinley—who wasn't in and of himself a nuisance, it was just that he was so young he had to be held almost constantly when he was in a strange place. But Molly wanted to have a visual record of this time, of this life she had with Sherlock and their kids, so she made the effort to capture her wayward husband and her recalcitrant daughter, and comfort her fussy baby son.

They had a full session done, like always. Most of the photos would get put in albums and given to Mycroft's PA, Anthea or whoever she was this week, who would file them away somewhere. The ones that they kept would be displayed around 221B proudly. Most of the creative and cute ideas were Molly's, Sherlock gave little input on what he wanted most of the time and they were hardly going to listen to a three year old's creative vision.

But this year was different, as Sherlock wanted the photos to be taken at home, at Baker Street. Once the photographer arrived, Sherlock asked that they do just a few of his ideas before moving on to Molly's for the rest of them. She'd smiled at him—finally he was taking an interest in an activity which would be his constant companion for the next several years at least, and so she hadn't asked him what he wanted that was so special. He was walking around the flat with an excited air around his head, his mind full of ideas probably and Molly half-hoped that he would be good enough to not drive away their photographer.

Sherlock sat Molly down in his chair, arranging her hair _just so_ over her shoulders before putting Brinley in her arms. Then he had Mayvee-Lynn rest up against her knee before stationing himself behind and to the side of the chair. After they'd gotten a few good shots, he had gladly allowed Molly to take the lead with their direction. He had just wanted the one, and he'd gotten it.

She was quite surprised when they got them back. The small set Sherlock had masterminded looked almost like formal, old-style photographs save for the saturated hues of the modern prints. Molly didn't remember Sherlock's hand on her shoulder, possessive and steadying, nor did she remember the photographer snapping a shot as she looked down to comfort Brinley—the little boy hated being held while not in motion, something left-over from either Molly's own walking when she'd been pregnant with him or Sherlock wandering aimlessly through the flat at night. In that photo she saw her family in perfect, beautiful clarity. Sherlock had his head bent down a little as though he were looking at Molly, when in fact his eyes were turned up towards the camera, watching. It made Molly smile, knowing that this was the one she would put up in the hall regardless of what Sherlock thought—she liked it.

Sherlock looked distinguished in his navy blue shirt, and if she looked very closely she could see the hair at his temples starting to lighten from the rest. Not quite silver, yes, but the high detail of the fine photographs brought out the truth of the matter. He stressed himself far too much, it was only natural that he would start going gray the day he hit forty.

Molly herself was in a cheery yellow dress which went down to her shins. It fell prettily around her in Sherlock's chair and was a wonderful solid background for Brinley to stand out in the little blue baby suit they'd gotten for him especially for the day. His eyes were bright and happy, his mouth open in a laugh as she tickled his belly, his arms flailing up and out. Mavis Leonette leaned in happy and smiling, reaching for one of Brinley's hands while also trying to crane her head around to look up at Sherlock. Her curly hair fuzzed all around her face, short and untamable just like Sherlock's but a copy in color to Molly's.

There was a very faint and smug twist to Sherlock's lips as he stared into the camera, out of the photo, and into Molly's eyes. She stuck her tongue out at him and went to get the phone book to find a professional framer. This one was most definitely going up in the hall.

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	17. Chapter 17

Thank you** Mrs Dizzy, Araminta18, **and** musicchica10 **for your wonderful reviews!

This story is rapidly reaching up towards being 16,000 words long on the word processor (fanfic always adds words to my stories it feels like, which is bizarre though there's probably a good reason for it) which is just ... wow. Not quite as dramatic a change as with My Medea (which doubled in length after an edit), but more than 2k words is pretty huge...

Also, I'm hoping to perhaps maybe sort of write a third piece to this series though I don't know what POV to put it from. Major contenders would be John, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, or a dual-POV thing from Mavis Leonette and Brinley's POV. Again, don't know at this point but if anyone has anything to say about that please say it...

Enjoy!

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**Find the love to unfold in this broken world**

They had an early night on the eve of his death. Sherlock read three stories to Mavis Leonette and Brinley, and Molly was inordinately proud of herself that she'd captured it all on the camera phone Sherlock had given to her for her birthday a year ago. It would be nice to have the recording, even if it was grainy and with poor sound quality, because it would be evidence to their children that their father _had_ existed—and they would have the fiction that he'd been warm and attentive at all times, because there would be no other evidence to the contrary. Even if Sherlock never returned, it would prove to them that Sherlock Holmes had been a living, breathing man.

It was all she would have left, too, other than two toddlers who looked more like herself than her husband.

Once both kids were in bed and asleep, they'd gone to their bedroom for the last time. Sherlock undressed Molly first, slowly, running his fingertips all over her skin and kissing her occasionally—a shoulder, between her breasts, at her hip, along each of the eleven stretch marks on her abdomen. He'd knelt on the floor for a long time, his ear pressed against her belly, his hands gripping the backs of her thighs. Eventually he had stood up and shed his own clothing and shooing her onto the bed before following her soon after to hold her and cuddle against her. He hadn't given her time to cry, though, kissing her breathless as they molded their bodies together in a slow rhythm—Molly dearly hoped that she didn't end up pregnant again, she wasn't sure she could deal with another baby around without Sherlock.

She'd fallen asleep afterwards, his arms still wrapped around her tightly, legs tangled under the sheets. It had been soothing, too, as he had lightly smoothed his fingertips or hands all over her body—as though he was committing it to memory, even though Molly was fairly sure he'd done that years ago. It was still nice to feel his lips tracing every bit of skin on her face, pressing down occasionally on an eyelid or her cheek. She would miss him terribly, she knew, and it seemed that he was going to miss her as well. It was a hollow comfort.

When Brinley fussed himself awake later on and dragged Sherlock away from her, she caught his arm and brought him down to kiss her once more.

"Molly…"

"I know, I know, I just wanted to tell you that I love you." It was dim in their room, but Molly could have sworn she saw him smile. Faintly in that very self-deprecating way he did when he refrained from saying what was on his mind because it was _kinder_. It warmed her heart that she had had a hand in helping Sherlock Holmes learn what it meant to be _kind_.

Hopefully he was still kind when he returned.

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	18. Chapter 18

Thank you** Mrs Dizzy, Araminta18, **and** musicchica10 **for your wonderful reviews!

More of Molly post-Sherlock here...

Enjoy!

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**Shine with all the untold**

Mavis Leonette was growing up to be a bright young girl, and Molly knew that she was proud enough of her daughter that it could almost make up for Sherlock being missing and absent in their lives. Mycroft offered to have the little girl placed in a private primary, but Molly declined—she was just the widow of that brilliant, manic detective, nothing more. There was no reason for anyone to look at her with anything other than a little wistful pity—pity that she'd married an unstable man who'd left her with two kids, pity that her husband had killed himself, pity that she was alone, whatever reason they felt it. Molly didn't mind, she had to spend most of her energy keeping up with her two kids.

The primary school she chose was close to the flat, a fifteen minute walk for her, a twenty minute walk for her daughter's short little legs. The girl looked like a bizarre gazelle sometimes, already all made of legs and elbows at the age of four—her father's frame had made it into her DNA even if his face hadn't. Her auburn curls bounced all around her face on her first morning, jumping up onto Molly's bed and shaking her shoulder with a tiny hand.

_"Mummy! Mummy,mummy, mummy, school!_" Though Mavis Leonette's eyes were brown like Molly's, Molly could see Sherlock's excitement shining through them. She knew that there was no way something like that could happen, but it at least reminded her of Sherlock to see her daughter so excited about a new adventure.

Brinley was still sleeping in his crib somehow despite his sister's noise, and that small mercy got Molly up and going for the day. Her son had a jet-engine of a scream, loud and unending when he wanted it that way—otherwise he remained nearly silent aside from the occasional giggle when Molly would play with him. He'd not even said his first words yet, something which Molly tried not to worry about.

"I know, sweetie, I know—now, have you had your shower?" Mavis Leonette nodded fiercely.

"So you need your breakfast now, do you?" Another nod.

"Alright. I need to get ready, I'll be out in a second. Do you want to pick out something for your brother to wear while I'm in the shower?" Her daughter had grinned and flung herself off the bed towards the dresser drawer where Brinley's outfits were kept. Letting Mavis Leonette choose Brinley's clothes was Molly's very subtle way of glossing over the trauma of Sherlock's death for her daughter. She didn't want her little girl to think that her Papa had died because of the pocket kerchief she'd chosen for him—a garish pink—so Molly always had Mavis Leonette choose her little brother's outfits.

If only someone was looking out for Molly as she was for her daughter, she mused as she washed her hair. It had been a year now after Sherlock's death—suicide influenced by manic-depressive tendencies, on his death certificate, a diagnosis which no one could find fault with concerning Sherlock Holmes—and Molly still kept all of his things (almost) exactly as he'd left them. His razor had had to move, but that was because Molly didn't want Mavis Leonette to cut herself accidentally, or for Brinley to get his hands on it when he was up and walking in a few months. He was starting to walk, and Molly just _knew _that when he finally got the hang of it he would be as unstoppable as Sherlock had been.

Sherlock Holmes was made of muscle and sinew, lanky but incredibly strong—he had a body built for running, which is exactly what he did with it, and it seemed that Brinley was going to be a tall boy for his age. His length was above average, and had remained so at every check-up. Molly was glad to have the little boy, despite Sherlock's remorse at leaving her with an infant and a toddler—he'd felt bad that she would have a difficult time of staying on top of their two kids, and it was sweet.

But Molly had help for the kids, she had plenty of help. John's wife Mary wanted children _badly_ and found any excuse she could to help Molly with Mavis Leonette and Brinley—although there wasn't much she could do that Molly couldn't, so Molly usually called her when she just needed a break. She didn't work anymore, instead just staying in and around 221B—she took her daughter to the park, or she would have Mrs. Hudson up to have dinner with them. Or, _Nana Hudson_ as she was known to Mavis Leonette and Brinley. Molly called her that because otherwise the kids would have no grandparents to speak of at all—and she dearly wanted her children to have at least a grandma to spoil them as Molly wouldn't allow herself to.

Sherlock's mother refused to speak to her—insisting that _she_ would have noticed _the signs_ that Sherlock was going to kill himself, and that Molly was a fool of the worst kind to have _permitted_ him to take his own life. Molly had then forbidden the woman from seeing her two grandchildren—and had spoken with Mycroft to ensure that her wishes were followed. Molly had never quite liked the woman, who Sherlock had a deep attachment to it seemed since he'd called her _Mummy_ at the grand age of thirty six when they'd been introduced. She had tried to make pleasant conversation, and she bought thoughtful gifts for her mother-in-law, but Sherlock's attachment to Molly seemed to cause a rift between him and his mother—Molly had tried to make sure that she didn't force him to choose between her or his mother. However, that didn't stop her from being secretly delighted when he'd deduced all of his mother's insecurities at the one (and only, _ever_) family dinner they'd had. Sherlock had finished his speech warning his mother to not make him choose between his wife and his mother because she would _not_ like what he decided on.

It was probably in part due to this ultimatum that Mummy Holmes wouldn't speak to Molly, something which Molly couldn't see a way to heal. Even if she exposed her secrets—Sherlock was alive, Sherlock hadn't died at all—it would make the old woman hate her more. Because Sherlock had 'killed himself' to save _Molly_.

Her own parents were gone, so this left Mrs. Hudson as the only viable "grandmother" candidate for her two kids. Mrs. Hudson had taken to the role as though she'd been born for it. She was already used to taking care of Sherlock, so his precocious children were no hassle—where he had been infuriating, they were endearing despite their behavior not being all that different. Neither kid had access to firearms—_yet—_which made it that much more bearable, despite their seemingly inherited tendencies towards defacing the walls nonetheless. It made Molly smile to help her kids pick out gifts and cards for the older woman, it was almost as though their world was starting to right itself somehow.

Everyone else was moving on from Sherlock's death, but Molly couldn't. Even as Mavis Leonette begged to put Brinley in his handsome blue jumpsuit so all the other children would see how pretty her baby brother was, not seeing the wince her mother gave, Molly knew that she would never heal from Sherlock's loss. The only person who would possibly bandage the wound on her heart, let alone help it heal, was Sherlock Holmes—and so it would lay bleeding until he returned or died, and if he really died Molly wasn't quite sure what she would do.

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	19. Chapter 19

Thank you** Mrs Dizzy **for your wonderful review!

Only another two chapters after this one, my dears. And Mrs. D, you made me! Well, not really but you certainly put the idea in my head.

Enjoy!

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**Hold the light given unto you **

Brinley's first words had come a bit late, which had worried Molly right up until he opened his mouth and just started _talking_. In tiny little sentences, often with fairly well-formed and simple words. He asked to wear his little blue shoes as Molly was putting on his red ones and for a brief moment of terror Molly had wondered if he was colorblind before he kicked the red shoe out of her limp fingers.

_"Buu, Mumma, buu,"_ he'd laughed as the shoe went skittering across the room, reaching his pudgy hands down in an attempt to free his other foot where it was caged by the little red baby trainer. Molly smiled in relief and helped him with the laces—laces because it kept his shoes on longer than Velcro had and Molly didn't want her kids running around without shoes, what would people say if Molly Holmes couldn't keep track of her kids enough to keep shoes on them?

Their son was thirteen months old, almost twice the age of Mavis Leonette when she'd started talking (just Papa and 'volee,' often said in close proximity to one another), but Molly couldn't fault him for it. Everyone was different, and did the same things in different ways—Sherlock had taught her that much, from his brilliance at seeing the world around him to his poor command of "how to People," in John's joking estimation.

By the time he was two, Brinley had caught up to the vocabulary level expected of his age despite the fact that he had been mostly quiet for his first year of life—he hadn't even babbled at the levels which were "normal." Molly hated the word normal.

Shed had even tried to find doctors who would refrain from the use of the word, but it was hard—so while she didn't often call Mycroft to ask him to do things for her, she did for this. Finding her a doctor—Doctor Gee—who would be honest with her and not staple diagnoses to her children was something that mattered to her, and Mycroft had found her one soon enough. Sherlock's two children were neurotypical enough, he said, and urged her not to worry—if they worked with doctors closely, but not intensely, then everything would be fine. Doctor Gee also treated Sherlock's "suicide" with great tenderness, telling Molly that depression ran in families—that Sherlock's father had been treated for depression himself. He told Molly that they would watch Mavis Leonette and Brinley carefully as they got older.

It reassured Molly a tiny bit that this hidden portion of Sherlock's family medical history was coming to light now—because she did know that these things could run in families. She wanted the best possible for her own family, and Doctor Gee was helping make that happen as they grew up.

And they were certainly doing that with a vigor she hadn't seen since Sherlock had been around and on the case. Molly was starting to feel short around her kids, as they got taller and taller with every day it seemed. Mavis Leonette was just five now and already her head fit at Molly's waist—definitely Sherlock's skeleton, there wasn't a Hooper to have _lived_ that was this tall at the age of five. Her only comfort was that Brinley preferred to sit and play with his blocks than stand up and make his mother feel short. It must have been the Hooper in him, because Mavis Leonette could barely be kept still.

She continued forcing them to get photos done, so that when Sherlock came back he would be able to see what his kids had looked like in his absence, at least a little bit. Because there was no "if" in Molly's mind, she refused to entertain the notion that Sherlock _might_ die. He couldn't, so he wouldn't—Molly over the last several months was finding that she quite liked Mavis Leonette's old theory on the subject.

Her bed felt empty every night, even the nights when Mavis Leonette would come and curl up next to her and whisper for her to tell stories of _Papa_. In fact, the tales she whispered back to her daughter—of the time Sherlock hadn't noticed he'd set himself on fire, or of the other time when he had stolen "Strad's" mobile and used it for a week instead of his own—made the cold in the room draw closer around them. Molly always shivered at the awareness that Sherlock was so present, but he was also _gone_. She hoped he came home soon, she was starting to miss him too much. When she was alone at night, her kids asleep in the room upstairs now that Brinley was old enough, Molly would run her hand over the empty space where Sherlock used to lay his head whenever he deigned to sleep. The sheets had been laundered many times, the scent of his skin and the hair or two left occasionally had long since been erased or removed. But she kept a pillow for him, and she didn't get rid of the bedframe and mattress which were far too large for her needs at the moment.

He would come home, it was impossible that he wouldn't. He had to. Molly just wished she knew when he would.

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	20. Chapter 20

Thank you** Mrs Dizzy **for your wonderful review!

The return happens here and in the next (last) chapter!

Enjoy!

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**Find the love to unfold in this broken world we choose**

Mavis Leonette's favorite part of school was coming home, and it had been that way since her fourth day last year. It had taken her almost a week to become thoroughly bored of the institution—and Molly sometimes considered asking Mycroft about what had been done for Sherlock when he was young, as it seemed Mavis Leonette was leaps and bounds ahead of her classmates—and now her favorite part of her schoolday was when Molly arrived to take her home. She often misbehaved to get sent home early, the teachers barely able to handle her on her particularly bad days. Today had been one such day.

Molly tried not to frown as she and her daughter walked home. Mavis Leonette was singing a song she'd been learning recently with her voice teacher—she'd utterly refused any attempts made at getting her to learn violin, stating that Papa would teach her violin and no one else and so they'd settled on singing lessons—and violently swinging Molly's arm back and forth by their connected hands. She was just almost skipping, and her curly auburn hair bounced along behind her head in the little pony-tail Molly had put it in not four hours ago.

Molly had been cleaning the house when the call came to retrieve her daughter, and she wondered if Mrs. Hudson would take in Mavis Leonette for a little while so she could finish. She _had_ planned on the painful task of airing Sherlock's dress shirts out—something she did every few months so that they would be nice when he returned. She always cried her eyes out when she did it, though, and had hoped that, with Mavis Leonette at school and Brinley with Mrs. Hudson, she would be able to have her moments of grief in relative peace.

"Molly, you really should wear lipstick love—your mouth is too small and I can see that you drank too much Chianti last night from the stain on your upper lip."

She stopped dead, her hand going limp from Mavis Leonette's, and she turned around as she tried to find Sherlock. There was a bearded man twenty paces from them, standing still in the middle of the pavement and ignoring passerby, and she imagined that she could see Sherlock's green eyes shining out between his curly dark hair and the mess of whiskers blooming from his cheeks and jaw. Mavis Leonette had recognized him faster and was tearing across the distance, screaming the only name she knew him by. Molly choked on a sob and then she was running too, running and crying and loving the sight of him and hating him for leaving her and feeling almost faint with relief.

The arm which snaked around her and pulled her close was wiry and strong and altogether too thin. She inhaled deeply at his neck, knowing that if she didn't breathe she would collapse in the street with an overexcited six year old and a seemingly homeless man as her only help. He smelled clean—_of course he would, damnable man_—and his beard tickled her ear, and all Molly could think of was that she wished she'd aired his shirts out yesterday because now they would be all musty from the dresser-drawer and that Sherlock would think she'd forgotten him when that was the farthest thing from the truth.

"She has an astounding memory, Molly, what is your secret?" Of course, she almost laughed, of course Sherlock would be immediately curious about the mind of his daughter. Everything else was just transport. So she told him, and almost squeaked as he crushed her tighter to him afterwards before beginning to walk briskly towards 221B. His arm fell to wrap around her waist so that she could walk normally next to him, although it was nearly a run because of his long strides. Molly knew that people were staring at her—just moments ago she had been listening to her daughter sing as they went home, and now they were both swept up in the arms of this tall, dark stranger—but she didn't care, she didn't even wipe the tears from her face as they continued to come down like rain.

Sherlock Holmes was back home, he'd come back to her, as he'd tacitly promised three years ago before he'd gone up to the roof to jump.

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	21. Chapter 21

Thank you** Mrs Dizzy **and** musicchica10 **for your wonderful reviews!

Okay so this is the end of Shine With All The Untold! D: I may or may not be writing another fic in this universe (tentatively titled **The Season of Scars and Hearts** maybe yes? it would probably be from Mavis Leonette's POV maybe if I can get into her head) so do tell me what you think of that idea in a review! Otherwise, um,

Enjoy!

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**In this broken world we choose**

She wept that night, far more than she really had thought she would. To be able to turn around and have Sherlock at her elbow, inspecting the life she'd been leading for the last three years and understanding it so implicitly that by the end of the evening he had molded himself once again around being husband, father, protector as he had been before he left. Molly couldn't help but cry every so often—when he'd sat in his chair and tuned his violin, the whine of the strings as he tightened and loosened them was almost as dear as the music he later drew from the instrument. She'd also cried—silent, fat tears down her cheeks every ten seconds or so—as he held one of her hands during the dinner they had with Mrs. Hudson.

Sherlock had sat at the head of the table, in a spot which had been empty for the years he'd been away, with his left hand clasped around her own. His thumb swept up and down her knuckles every so often as the conversation rose and fell. He didn't chide her as the tears filled her eyes and eventually spilled, just squeezed her hand slightly without breaking whatever sentence or bite he was in the middle of. Everyone else kindly looked away except for Brinley who pouted whenever she met his eyes—he didn't like it when she cried, not one bit.

Molly also wept in bed that night as she ghosted her fingers along his skin, as he pressed his lips firmly against her neck, as they wrapped around one another and remembered every curve and plane of muscle on each other's bodies. Sherlock had tried, initially, to sooth her tears away or at least wipe them away with the blade of his thumb—but Molly asked him to stop, she wasn't sad. She was so blissfully happy that there was no other way to express it. Sherlock left her to her small lie—that she was glad he was home, because really Molly was so happy that it made her ache with the feeling. But she was also sad that they had had to endure three years of loss. She was sad that Sherlock had not been there to teach Brinley his "L"s or to walk. He had missed forcing his daughter to learn the violin properly from a proper master until she was older.

With every kiss he laid on her naked skin, Molly felt more tears welling up at the fact that he had hurt himself so badly in order to avoid being hurt in such a way as to break him.

Because Molly knew that it would have been _easier_ for Sherlock to let them die, and that his last three years of hardship would barely be appreciated by Mavis Leonette or Brinley and only barely understood by Molly herself. She knew that he had chosen the path of thorns better than he did probably—she knew that Sherlock Holmes had gotten too attached to his family to ever give them up permanently. Molly also understood that for a man who had such a poor grasp on intimacy and emotions and love, his sacrifice of the last three years had been close to the ultimate one. It had to have been the acutest kind of misery, knowing that if he misjudged a step even _once_ that there could be bullets in the brains of his wife and two children and that in all likelihood someone would make him _watch_. She certainly wouldn't have been able to handle it.

Molly wept in relief, also, because Sherlock would only have come home if he was sure—if he was _absolutely_ sure that the threats to his family were neutralized to the very best of his impressive ability. She had long ago accepted the Sherlock would kill for her, and she let the tears flow that evening for however many men and women, little girls and boys too, who had lost a dear loved one because of how deeply and obsessively Sherlock loved her and their children. When Sherlock Holmes was on the case, it was bad news for bad people—and Molly hoped that whoever stepped into the vacuum Sherlock had torn through the criminal underworld, they would not suck him away from her once again. Because while he was perfectly able to withstand and recover from such, Molly wasn't too sure she could be that strong for him again.

It was the middle of the night when she woke up later, feeling as though she were welded against him as he held her tightly. His shoulders were shaking, and there was a distinct hitch to his breath—and it was slightly painful where his fingers dug into her soft skin.

"Molly…" he whispered when he realized she was awake, his lips tickling her where he pressed his face between her shoulder and neck.

"I'm here, Sherlock," she whispered back, hardly daring to move—when Sherlock got this keyed up, one wrong mood would send him pacing for hours around the house and leave her alone, and she didn't want to be alone tonight of all nights. He could pace obsessively tomorrow night, any other night, but tonight he owed it to her to stay with her.

"Molly, I love you—I don't deserve you, but I love you, I do," he said, his voice soft and barely above the whisper from earlier. Molly petted her fingers through his hair and tried to shift around a bit so that she could cradle him with her body—and she felt him relax into the feeling.

"Sherlock, I deserve whoever I want, and I want you—and you deserve the same do you want me?" She smiled when he clutched tighter around her and nodded, even though it was too dark for him to see it and besides he still had his face hidden in the crook of her neck. Molly continued running her fingers through his dark curls and thought about tomorrow—they would go to see Greg Lestrade, and then John and his wife Mary, and whoever else Sherlock decided needed to know he was alive again. Tomorrow this vulnerable man would be gone.

Sherlock mediated his mood swings and obsessions by letting out occasional moments of vulnerability, of his humanity, all through the day. But when he was forced to store them up, when he let them out they _poured_ out—and this, right now, was three years' worth of her husband's tenderness, sweetness, and weakness coming out. It would all be gone by tomorrow, but for the moment Molly was glad to have this much. She had Sherlock Holmes, and he had her.

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